Sit down, take out a pad and pencil and just jot down a list of things that you have an interest in. Don't do it in any order, just make a list. Maybe you have a couple of hobbies - collectibles, woodworking, crafts, doll houses, sewing, etc. Or maybe you have specific expertise in some work related area. For instance, you may specialize in marketing, advertising, real estate, stocks, communications, word processing, baking, cooking, or book reviews. You get the idea! On the other hand, maybe you have no hobbies or interest, you're a couch potato! Well, guess what, maybe you know where all the great programs are on TV, you are an expert on soaps, classic movies, sci-fi, or sports. Write them down.

Now go through the list and re-arrange it, listing them by the ones that you have the most interest in and the most knowledge of. Get on your computer and go to one of the major search engines like Yahoo and do a search for "ezine lists". You will come up with a number of listings such as: John Labovitz's Ezine List at http://www.meer.net/johnl/e-zine-list/ or eZINESearch at http://www.site-city.com/members/e-zine-master Use the keyword process to find ezines that might cover the topic that you are interested in. If you don't find anything about the first item on your list go to the next. There are 1,000's of ezines on the Net covering all types of topics.

Another good source for finding publishers who need articles is Gary Christensen's Writer's & Publisher's Connection Newsletter. Each issue has a list of publishers looking for articles on specific topics and writers offering articles. You can get a free subscription at: writers98@aol.com You can also get a list of over 400 ezines, the majority dealing with online marketing and promotion by sending an email to: ezines@homebizlink.com

So you found a topic and you have written your first article. Make sure that you spell check it and format it so that it appears professional and the publisher can take it and insert it in his or her publication without too much trouble.

I use about four articles each week and many of them are from other publishers/writers. I received one last week that I was interested in using. It was about eight paragraphs long which was great for my Tip of The Week section. But when I pasted into my text program where I draft my ezine it came out to be eight lines. Each line stretched about six screens to the right. Why? Because the writer just kept typing and let his text wrap at the end of each line instead of using a hard return. So I would have had to go through each line and put a hard return and format the whole thing. I didn't have the time so I deleted it and used another.

When preparing my articles, I try to make them about 60-65 characters per line with a hard return at the end of each line. This is a good length since many email programs read mail differently. There is nothing worse than a article that has long lines and short lines of varying lengths every other line. Looks sloppy and unprofessional! It is also a good idea to use a similar guideline if you publish an ezine.

With each article you send out, add a resource paragraph or signature paragraph of about five or six lines. Don't get greedy and add one with 12 or 15 lines. Keep it simple. Take a look at mine at the end of this article.

Once you are ready to send it out, get your list of publisher addresses ready, make sure you save the list so you can add to it and use it in the future. We have our list of publishers who we send out articles to regularly saved as a separate email list in our email program and just have to paste it into the email and it goes out. You also want to have a short introductory paragraph offering the article for their publication, the topic and I like to add in the approximate number of words, so they know right up front. I have found that between 600 and 800 words is a good size article for a lot of publishers.

So make up your list, do a little research, and get writing!